


The Merman Has Tentacles

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Blushing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Euphemisms, Jesper and Wylan are happy together, M/M, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Reading Aloud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 07:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30035259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: Jesper's getting used to his life on Geldstraat, but he likes to keep things interesting! Sometimes that means bringing home a new book. He's fairly certain Wylan will enjoy this one. It's fun, it's frivolous, and it's completely filthy.Jesper and Wylan laugh over a sailor/merman novel.
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33
Collections: Week #6: Turn the Page





	The Merman Has Tentacles

**Author's Note:**

> This was a challenge in which everyone picked their own prompt from a nearby book, and mine... well, this was mine.
> 
> "Then they show you a bottle and you're confused about what it has to do with mermaid boat sex, but you still kind of want to know what it smells like?"  
> -The Beckoning Shadow by Katharyn Blair
> 
> I actually went through several ideas (one extremely dark, one with a small child...) before settling on this and I hope you enjoy how it turns out! In a way, it's a spiritual successor to [The Kaelish Mists](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221566)\--in that fic, Jesper and Wylan read a romance. Someone joked about them reading smut. The idea stuck!

Jesper strolled into the Van Eck mansion, a place that had quickly come to feel like home. It was astonishingly easy to get used to being greeted as “Mr. Fahey” by a maid with an apron so clean and white, it was objectively the worst thing to wear for chores. He had no trouble getting used to the soft, merchling-warmed bed, nor the ready availability of fine food—which was getting even better as the markets reopened.

The new lifestyle took some adjustments, but the new circumstances were just fine. 

Jesper checked the studio first. The mansion didn’t have a studio previously, but Wylan decided Marya needed a place to paint and draw when the weather didn’t cooperate, or if she couldn’t sleep at night. She was there now, but Wylan wasn’t. Jesper followed the sounds of piano music upstairs. Something slow and classical could have been either of them—but today it was Wylan.

Jesper made himself comfortable while he waited for the song to finish. He had heard it before, and not just from Wylan, but it was the sort of music designed for a measured and choreographed dance. Really not Jesper’s style. Wylan, however… Wylan was Jesper’s style. His eyes looked shut as he played, a distant smile on his lips. While Jesper was adjusting to life in Geldin District, Wylan was recovering from life in the Barrel, and he did look healthier. It helped that the bruises had faded.

“You played that whole thing by heart,” Jesper observed. 

“Jes!” Wylan turned to him with a grin that made Jesper’s heart zing.

“We should put one of these in your studio,” he said, “I could watch you paint. Or pose for you.” The tone made his meaning clear, with Jesper wriggled his hips to be absolutely certain Wylan understood. 

Wylan turned a beautiful shade of pink. Well, what did he expect, just having a chaise lounge lying around?!

“Oh, don’t sulk!” Jesper said. “I got you a present. Well—I got us a present.”

Wylan still had something reserved in his eyes.

Jesper sighed. “That was one time! And you got over it.”

“You might have told me…”

Well, how was Jesper supposed to know that Wylan was sixteen years old and still had never drunk whiskey? Besides—he wasn’t anymore. He was still sixteen, but the whiskey situation was much changed!

“It’s not alcohol this time. I went to that shop by the Rozentuin Bridge.”

“That… shop,” Wylan said, unsubtly becoming far more interested. He shifted a little closer to the end of the piano bench—a little closer to Jesper.

One day, Wylan would go with Jesper. Maybe he would go on his own, but Jesper doubted that. Besides, he wanted to take Wylan to the shop by the Rozentuin Bridge; it was an out-of-the-way little wooden door, a dingy hallway, and at the the end of it a shop that sold books, art, all and sundry and a few things not mentioned in polite company. It would be the first place Wylan ever saw artwork featuring people like him—and until he went for himself, Jesper would just have to bring home little pieces.

“They’re hosting a poetry reading next week if you want to go with me.”

“Do you like poetry readings?” Wylan asked. 

Jesper couldn’t fault his skepticism. He wasn’t exactly the poetry type—at least, not poetry that required gasps of restrained emotion and flutters of the heart. Though looking at Wylan now, curls falling over his excitement-lit eyes, Jesper thought the moment called for a little poetry.

He shrugged. “Let’s find out!” He had no experience with poetry readings. But he did like the shop. “For now, I got us a book.”

“Oh…”

“Wy, look at this cover and tell me you’re not intrigued,” Jesper said, offering the book to Wylan. 

Slowly, Wylan’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and a blush crept up his neck. It was an… interesting premise. The cover showed a marooned sailor (sailors were very popular in these books) speaking with a merman, who appeared to be glowing.

“Wylan,” Jesper said, “the merman has tentacles.”

Wylan’s blush deepened. “You mean… instead of?”

“Huh. Didn’t think about that,” Jesper admitted, “I assumed they were additional. We’ll find out tonight!”

Jesper had been fully prepared to wait on anything more than suggestive comments—he knew Wylan was new to being romanced. But Wylan, all blushes and stammers and that adorable determined furrow between his eyebrows, had made clear his desire to try something more than kissing. So Jesper knew his boyfriend had a healthy appetite before he brought the book home. He wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Or, well, he might have, but he would have kept the book to himself.

Still… a guy didn’t get a blush like that from poetry!

* * *

“Wylan?”

“Coming!” Wylan called, his voice thick. He took the toothbrush out of his mouth to add, “Don’t start without me!”

So many times, he had crawled exhausted onto a thin and narrow mattress. He had lain his aching body down with care to his bruises. He had closed his eyes, accepting he couldn’t stop stinging words from flooding over him. 

Tonight Wylan finished brushing, then settled under the covers. There were lovely, thick pillows. He settled his head on Jesper’s shoulder instead. 

“Is this okay?”

“Scoot down a little,” Jesper replied, then wrapped his arm around Wylan. “Perfect. Have I mentioned how comfortable you are?”

“I know how comfortable I am,” Wylan retorted, almost sleepily. He knew, because he looked forward to being in bed now not because sleep would take him and erase everything else, but because this was Jesper time.

And tonight’s Jesper time included a book about a sailor. Jesper began to read aloud even as Wylan marveled at how wonderful he felt lying here beside his boyfriend, how perfectly they fit together.

It was a very efficient book. It established first that Aleksandr the Ravkan sailor was very rugged and handsome (this would doubtless play a key role in the plot). Jesper read a warm feeling into Wylan’s belly the way he described Aleksandr—sure they were the author’s words, but Jesper used them to fullest extent.

That handsomeness established, the book carried into the storm that would doubtless account for Aleksandr’s marooning. By now the hot feeling in Wylan’s stomach had turned sour.

“Wy?”

He must’ve made a noise. “Hm?”

“Is this okay?”

“Well… yeah, just… you like this, right?”

“I do, but we can read something else if you don’t. Or we don’t have to read at all.”

“It’s not that.” Wylan shifted to get a little more comfortable. The thing about long-term snuggling this way, it pressed his ear against Jesper’s chest in a less than comfortable way. “I mean—all that stuff about rough sailor’s hands and strong, firm arms—is that… would you want…”

“Would I rather be with a muscular volcano of a man?” Jesper asked, his tone making Wylan blush. “There’s an appeal, sure, but that doesn’t mean I like your exquisite body any less.”

“Jesper,” Wylan objected.

“Just like I didn’t mind grabbing fried potatoes from a cart. I’d still rather eat a fancy steak off a china plate, even if it is a rare occasion.” Jesper’s fingers played in Wylan’s curls, his other hand cradled around the book, thumb between the pages.

“I… see. So… if someone had a… softer body…”

“Well, I wouldn’t kick Aleksandr’s solid chest out of bed in the morning, but I’d rather wake up next to you, my gorgeous fancy steak.”

“I’m the steak?”

“Of course you’re the steak.” 

Sometimes Wylan didn’t understand why Jesper’s compliments made him feel so wonderful. Objectively, ‘you are a steak’ sounded more insulting than anything else. Jesper made it high praise. One of his innumerable talents.

“Wylan,” Jesper said, in his ‘serious now’ tone. “I don’t need rough sailor’s hands when there are talented flautist’s hands available. Your body is perfect. You’re exactly what I want.”

The responding feeling wasn’t quite a blush. It was like blushing and floating and sinking into a warm bath, and all the gentle pleasant-prickly feelings of being wanted. Being wanted by Jesper no less!

“Thanks.” It felt too small—but then, what could have been enough? “And—you are, too. I mean…”

“Yeah,” Jesper agreed, “the difference is I know it!”

Wylan laughed. “How could you not?”

“Keep reading?”

“Yeah.”

The story moved along quickly. Aleksandr’s ship went down in the storm, but he clung to a piece of the mast and washed up on an island, where he met a merman. Wylan expected some survival things to happen—Aleksandr needed to eat, after all. Probably wanted to set up a signal fire and see about making himself an alternative outfit to his torn clothing, if he could. (Wylan was fairly certain the term “shapely calves” was used six times before Jesper turned the page, making him very conscious of his own squishy thighs. To say nothing of “meaty shoulders”. That one didn’t make Wylan feel at all inadequate, just a little disinterested!)

Apparently none of that mattered, though, because the merman, whose name was Moondrop—Wylan stifled laughter; Jesper didn’t bother—tossed him fish to eat. Aleksandr did have to start a fire, but he had flint and a knife, so that wasn’t too tough. As absurd as the story was, Wylan appreciated how Moondrop the merman ( _Ghezen_ …) was described. He had a more gentle sort of body, one that was described in just as much detail as Aleksandr. He even had freckles and blue eyes. Both were given loving attention by the author.

That was it: a few pages in and Aleksandr was waist-deep in the cove, and—

“So,” Jesper commented, “the tentacles are additional!”

Wylan’s blush rocketed to such fierce levels he thought he might pass out. He reached behind him for one of the pillows and pressed his face into it. The cool case soothed the burn he doubted would fade as long as he knew the word ‘tentacles’.

“Um… Wylan?”

“Yep.”

“Do you want me to stop reading?”

“No, please keep going.”

“You sure?”

“Mm-hmm.” Wylan wanted to know what happened next! That is, he was pretty sure he already knew, but he wanted it confirmed… and he wanted to hear how it all played out!

“Wy… see, the thing here is, I’d feel a lot better about this if you took the pillow off your face.”

“Mmm… no… no thank you!”

Jesper laughed. “Okay,” he said, and Wylan felt him shift to pick up the book again. “But just to be clear, if I don’t see that gorgeous face, I’m not tumbling you.”

“I… wh…” There was nothing else for it: Wylan had to drop the pillow to give Jesper an incredulous look. “Please don’t use that term!”

“Excuse me, if I don’t get to see that beautiful face I’m not—”

“Jesper!” Wylan yelped, smacking him on the chest with the pillow.

Jesper laughed.

Halfway exasperated, Wylan asked, “Why must you insist on referring to acts of intimacy as tumbling?”

“Why must you insist on referring to tumbling as acts of intimacy?” Jesper retorted. He set the book aside and turned off the lamp. “We can keep reading tomorrow. Maybe Aleksandr will get creative with those tentacles.”

Wylan grinned. In the dark, they resettled themselves, getting comfortable under the covers. As they did, he said, “You seemed like you were enjoying the book!”

“It’s ridiculous in all the best ways,” Jesper said. That summed up the book perfectly! “There’s about another hundred pages and I’m guessing at least half that will be acts of intimacy.”

Unable to keep from laughing, Wylan said, “Okay, maybe we can call it tumbling when it happens with a merman. The beach seems like a bad choice, though—you’d get sand everywhere!”

Jesper laughed. Wylan felt a tingle of pride for making him laugh. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jesper reasoned, “he can have a bath in the cove. That won’t lead to anything!”

They both laughed that time. Wylan reached in the dark until his fingers brushed Jesper’s arm, which he followed to his hand. 

“It’s the most ridiculous book I’ve ever heard of. Thank you for bringing it home.”

“You haven’t heard of enough books. Trust me, Wy—there are way more ridiculous books out there!”

“Mm, I’m currently lying in bed next to a gangster who knows a secret that could ruin me. I think trust is a given.”

“You’re underestimating, I know at least three secrets that could ruin you.”

Three? Wylan thought for a moment. He supposed there was the Ice Court, too, and—before he could figure out the third secret, Jesper had pulled him close. Wylan didn’t know why that made him laugh. It just did. It made him laugh, it made him feel every bright color he knew and some he only imagined. Suddenly Wylan didn’t care how many secrets Jesper knew, only that he was here and wonderful!

When he had come to his senses again, Wylan asked, “You’ll read more tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Of course! I have to know what happens next.”

“They… tumble.”

“Yeah, they tumble, but who tumbles who? Is it in the water or in the surf? I have so many questions!”

Wylan laughed. He did that a lot these days. With Jesper.

“Jes, next week, you should take me out.”

“I should?”

“You should. You should take me to a poetry reading.”


End file.
